Speakers Corner / Verve - V 8359-42 - 180 Gram Virgin Vinyl - 

Deluxe 4 Disc Box Set - Booklet - Limited Edition

Pure Analogue Audiophile Mastering - Pressed  at Pallas Germany

Verve V-8539 , V-8540 , V-8541 , V-8542

Speakers Corner 25 Years pure Analogue

The sheer clarity of this remaster is stunning. Highly recommended. HIFI World

Every Speakers Corner pressing I have heard has been exceptional -- free of sonic artifacts and very quiet to the very bottom of the groove. precious. While 45rpm remastered LPs are all the rage right now, the historic significance and first-class presentation of this set trumps a good many of them. - TheAudioBeat 

Never re-released, these four LPs have become true collector's items. Now - after almost 50 years - they are once again available for your pure enjoyment.

The number of jazz fans who heard the live concert series "Jazz At The Philharmonic" must be fairly diminished by now. Nevertheless, these sessions still enjoy legendary status in the 21st century.

 

The concert promoter Norman Granz took his giants of jazz to Europe in the mid-Fifties. Oscar Peterson, Illinois Jacquet and Ella Fitzgerald were the great names, which caused fans in Hamburg, Berlin, Paris and Brussels to leap from their seats with enthusiasm, and in November 1960 they were followed by the encounters between young and old, and between white and black soloists. At the concert on 21 November in the packed Konserthuset in Stockholm, Coleman Hawkins, Benny Carter and Don Byas met up with Stan Getz, Cannonball Adderley, Leo Wright and J. J. Johnson – the stylistic link being provided by the two trumpeters Roy Eldridge and Dizzy Gillespie. The themes opened up new perspectives too: "Bernie’s Tune", "Kush", "All The Things You Are" and "Trotting" are clearly audible as real challenges for the old hands. And the younger musicians – several of them who were counted among the avant-garde – follow admirably in their footsteps: for example Stan Getz yet free from bossa nova clichés; Cannonball Adderley, full of soul and a funky sound; and a groovy and grooving J. J. Johnson.

 

Although the JATP jam sessions had undoubtedly reached their zenith in the Forties, the recordings made in November 1960 for Norman Granz’s Verve label offer a wealth of great listening and points of discussion. Never re-released, the four LPs have become true collectors’ items. Now – after almost 50 years – they are once again available for your pure enjoyment.

 

 

                               

This Speakers Corner LP was remastered using pure analogue components only, from the master tapes through to the cutting head 20 Years pure Analogue

 

Are your records completely analogue?

Yes! This we guarantee!

As a matter of principle, only analogue masters are used, and the necessary cutting delay is also analogue. All our cutting engineers use only Neumann cutting consoles, and these too are analogue. The only exception is where a recording has been made – either partly or entirely – using digital technology, but we do not have such items in our catalogue at the present time

 

Are your records cut from the original masters?

In our re-releases it is our aim to faithfully reproduce the original intentions of the musicians and recording engineers which, however, could not be realised at the time due to technical limitations. Faithfulness to the original is our top priority, not the interpretation of the original: there is no such thing as a “Speakers Corner Sound”. Naturally, the best results are obtained when the original master is used. Therefore we always try to locate these and use them for cutting. Should this not be possible, – because the original tape is defective or has disappeared, for example – we do accept a first-generation copy. But this remains an absolute exception for us.

 

Who cuts the records?

In order to obtain the most faithful reproduction of the original, we have the lacquers cut on the spot, by engineers who, on the whole, have been dealing with such tapes for many years. Some are even cut by the very same engineer who cut the original lacquers of the first release. Over the years the following engineers have been and still are working for us: Tony Hawkins, Willem Makkee, Kevin Gray, Maarten de Boer, Scott Hull, and Ray Staff, to name but a few.

At the beginning of the ‘90s, in the early days of audiophile vinyl re-releases, the reissue policy was fairly straightforward. Companies such as DCC Compact Classics, Mobile Fidelity, Classic Records and others, including of course Speakers Corner, all maintained a mutual, unwritten code of ethics: we would manufacture records sourced only from analogue tapes. 

 

Vinyl’s newfound popularity has led many other companies to jump on the bandwagon in the hope of securing a corner of the market. Very often they are not so ethical and use every imaginable source from which to master: CDs, LPs, digital files and even MP3s. 

 

Even some who do use an analogue tape source employ a digital delay line, a misguided ’80s and ‘90s digital technology that replaces the analogue preview head originally used to “tell” the cutter head in advance what was about to happen musically, so it could adjust the groove “pitch” (the distance between the grooves) to make room for wide dynamic swings and large low frequency excursions. Over time analogue preview heads became more rare and thus expensive. 

 

So while the low bit rate (less resolution than a 16 bit CD) digital delay line is less expensive and easier to use than an analogue “preview head”, its use, ironically, results in lacquers cut from the low bit rate digital signal instead of from the analogue source! 

 

Speakers Corner wishes to make clear that it produces lacquers using only original master tapes and an entirely analogue cutting system. New metal stampers used to press records are produced from that lacquer. The only exceptions are when existing metal parts are superior to new ones that might be cut, which includes our release of “Elvis is Back”, which was cut by Stan Ricker or several titles from our Philips Classics series, where were cut in the 1990s using original master tapes by Willem Makkee at the Emil Berliner Studios. In those cases we used only the original “mother” to produce new stampers. 

 

In addition, we admit to having one digital recording in our catalogue: Alan Parsons’ “Eye in the Sky”, which was recorded digitally but mixed to analogue tape that we used to cut lacquers. 

 

In closing, we want to insure our loyal customers that, with but a few exceptions as noted, our releases are “AAA”— analogue tape, an all analogue cutting system, and newly cut lacquers.